


Dark Cupid 2.0

by JuliaFC



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Is Sunshine, Adrien Agreste Knows, Adrien Agreste Needs Help, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Has a Crush on Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Identity Reveal, Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng Fluff, Adrinette | Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng Fluff, Chloé Bourgeois Being Chloé Bourgeois, F/F, F/M, Hot Mess Adrien Agreste, Hot Mess Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Ladrien | Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Ladybug, Ladynoir | Adrien Agreste as Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Ladybug, M/M, Marichat | Adrien Agreste as Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Identity Reveal, Miraculous Ladybug Love Square, Oblivious Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Oblivious Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Post-Episode: s01 Dislocœur | Dark Cupid, Post-Episode: s03 Oblivio
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29598162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuliaFC/pseuds/JuliaFC
Summary: Chloé did it again. She humiliated Kim on Valentine's Day once more, causing the rise of the even scarier Dark Cupid 2.0. But what happens when Ladybug takes the hit for Chat Noir? Will Chat Noir (and Ladybug herself) be able to deal with her subsequent reaction, and what that reaction means? And why is Adrien remembering Oblivio? Full Lovesquare story.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Ivan Bruel/Mylène Haprèle, Juleka Couffaine/Rose Lavillant, Lê Chiến Kim/Ondine, Marc Anciel/Nathaniel Kurtzberg, Max Kanté & Markov
Comments: 101
Kudos: 128
Collections: Lila Anon Support Group





	1. Old Enemy, New Powers

**Betas:** [ **Khanofallorcs** ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khanofallorcs) **,** [ **Etoile-Lead-Sama** ](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/3180546/Etoile-Lead-Sama) **,** [ **Agrestebug** ](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/12552168/AgresteBug) **,** [ **rosehealer02** ](https://www.deviantart.com/rosehealer02) **,** [ **genxha** ](https://www.twitch.tv/genxha) **,** [ **Speckleflower** ](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/12984080/Speckleflower) **and** [ **Malauu-LadyNoir** ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malauu_Ladynoir/pseuds/Malauu_Ladynoir) **. Thank you all so much!**

**Cover art credit to[Rosehealer02](https://www.deviantart.com/rosehealer02) on Deviantart**

**Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by (c) Thomas Astruc, TS1 Bouygues, Disney Channel, Zagtoon, Toei Animation. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

**oOoOoOoOoOo**   
[ ](https://ibb.co/NYpH5rz)   
**oOoOoOoOoOo**

Adrien sighed as the sedan stopped at Place Vendôme, in front of Van Cleef & Arpels. Unfortunately, the posh car hadn’t gone unnoticed and at least a dozen young girls (and boys) had gathered immediately in front of it to peek inside. He heard, “Oh my God!” and “That’s Adrien Agreste!” and he knew that he was screwed. There was no way that he could get out of the car and reach the door of the jewellery store. He exchanged an annoyed look with the Gorilla at the front, as his arms folded onto his chest and the index finger of his right hand started tapping nervously on his left arm. He buried himself into the back of his seat and huffed. 

The Gorilla sighed and grunted loudly. Then he released the lock to the driver’s door and he went out of the car, took his time to lock the doors again and signaled to Adrien that he was going in. Adrien gave him a grateful look. 

“T’was nice of him,” commented Plagg peeking cautiously out of the pocket of his coat. 

“Yeah,” said Adrien. “I would never have been able to go past that!” He jerked his head to point at the now bigger gathering of fans that were peeking at him from the car’s window. He smiled his model smile and looked at a couple of girls (the ones who seemed to have glued their nose to the window in front of him), which caused them to come out with a loud squeal and start fanning their necks. _Good Lord_ , he thought and sighed again. 

“So you’re sure about it. Today’s the day that you’re going to confess,” said Plagg. 

Adrien met his furry friend’s gaze and blushed a little, his heart skipping a beat as he opened his bag. He picked out a red envelope and opened it hastily, revealing a pretty card with printed at the front a picture of him and Marinette smiling. The picture was nothing special, but Adrien smiled softly at it, remembering the day it had been taken, when he had accepted to model some of the clothes of her line. That day, her friend Juleka had ended up akumatised and he and Ladybug for some reason had ended up swapping Miraculous. 

There wasn’t a particular reason why he had chosen that picture. Or maybe there was, because Marinette was smiling happily and didn’t display the usual cringing smile that she seemed to reserve only to him. She was holding his arm, looking at his face and smiling a genuine smile. He opened the card, made sure that it was signed and put it back into the envelope, and the envelope back into his bag. 

“Yes,” he said eventually. “I have pursued Ladybug for too long. It’s time I moved on. She will never reciprocate my feelings.”

Plagg observed the sad gleam that shone in his holder’s eyes and his ears went flat on his head. “She has rejected you too many times, _gamin_. You deserve to be happy too.” 

"Yeah. If she will take me, you mean."

"Nah, you're really blind, Adrien." He noticed the surprised frown that furrowed Adrien’s eyebrows and added quickly, “I did tell you that you should concentrate on cheese. But nope, you don’t want to listen. At least now you’re choosing a much more suitable target.”

Adrien winced at Plagg’s mention of the word ‘target’. He remembered how Kagami had told him something very similar a few months before, and after the initial refusal, he had genuinely tried to focus on the Japanese girl, but he had found that he wasn’t able to let himself go, as if in his heart he knew that it wasn’t right. And after the trip to New York, he had realised that he had instead started growing feelings for another girl, his first friend, the beautiful, amazing and extraordinary girl who had faced his father to obtain permission for him to go to New York with his class. 

When he had spoken to Kagami about it, he had been surprised that she had taken it quite well, given the circumstances. 

“I knew it wouldn’t last long,” she had said, revealing to him that she had seen that he loved Marinette from the first day they had met. However, “It was worth a shot,” she had continued. 

She _had_ been upset. He had seen the tears rolling out of her amber eyes and she had cancelled the date they were on, and had gone home without saying a word more. 

From then on, she had been much more difficult to beat during their fencing training sessions, but outside of the sport, she hadn’t raged on him in any other way. In fact, around a month ago, she had told him that if he didn’t get his act together and confess to Marinette, she would kick his backside so badly during the following fencing training that he would remember about it for the rest of his life.

Now _that_ was a threat he didn’t want to become real. Not at all. 

Suddenly, he heard the clack of the front door’s lock and the Gorilla opened the door quickly and came in, slamming the door right behind him and pushing the lock button hastily. He turned around and handed a small package to Adrien, which he promptly hid inside his school bag. 

“Thank you for doing this for me!” said Adrien looking at him gratefully from the rearview mirror. His bodyguard gave him a thumbs up and turned on the engine of the car, causing quite a few disappointed moans outside. Adrien sighed and waved, more than happy to leave the squealing fans behind.

When the car resumed driving slowly in Paris’ afternoon traffic, Adrien dared pick up the packet that the Gorilla had given him from his school bag and inspected it carefully. The jewellers had done a good job of wrapping it. It was a black, velvety box held together by a flaming red ribbon. He carefully undid the ribbon just enough to open the top of the box and take a peek inside. The tanzanite gemstone on the simple gold ring shone brightly in the sunlight. He admired curiously the particular lighter line that decorated the bluebell surface of the stone, and his lips curved in a small smile. It hadn’t been cheap, but how could he resist the urge to buy a [ _cat’s eye_ tanzanite ](https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23475/lot/250/)? Even though he would never be able to tell Marinette about it, the pun in the stone’s name was perfect in its subtlety. 

He closed the packet and replaced the bow on it carefully, satisfied by what he had seen. He had just placed the ring into his school bag when he heard a ping to notify him of an incoming message on his phone. He picked the phone up and frowned slightly when he saw that it was from the class’ Whatsapp chat, and it came from Chloé. He opened the chat and his frown deepened. There in the chat was a picture from last year's Valentine’s day. Kim was holding a box that contained a brooch, knee down into a little puddle, a bag of crisps hanging on his sad looking face. The caption at the top said, ‘Once a loser, always a loser!’

Adrien groaned angrily. Chloé. That girl would never learn!

“Uh, this is bad. It can lead to another akuma!” whispered Plagg.

Adrien nodded. “I know. We’re nearly at school. Maybe I can grab Chloé and force her to apologise before it’s too late.”

“That girl is the biggest akuma magnet to ever cross planet Earth. It’s truly amazing how dedicated she is at helping Hawkmoth in his quest.”

Adrien sighed. “Come on, Plagg, Chloé isn’t that bad.” Plagg glared at him, so he added quickly, “I know she can be over the top, but I think today she’s just upset, like many other people. She doesn’t have a date on Valentine’s Day and Kim instead was boasting this morning about how he was going to ask Ondine out at lunchtime and take her to the upcoming water-polo match between France and Ita—”

“It doesn’t authorise her to play with other people’s feelings like this and just create opportunities for others to be akumatised, though.” 

Adrien sighed again. “I know, buddy. I’ll talk to her when I get to school. And we’ll watch out for Kim.”

So when the car pulled in in front of Collège Françoise Dupont, Adrien emerged from the sedan with a determined gleam in his eyes and walked in the gate, immediately looking around for Chloé.

Whom he saw straight away. But what he saw left him so stunned that he just lost all will to move and talk to her. He just stared, eyes wide, at a terrified looking Marinette running for her life in the school hall, followed by Chloé — and _Lila_ too, which was even more amazing! — running after her and screaming for her to stop. 

“Wait, _Marikins_! Don’t leave me here with this liar! Let me show you how much I love you!” was saying Chloé, her lips puckered to try to kiss the air in front of her.

“Marinette! Don’t listen to this bully, I want to show you how much _I_ love you! I want to be your friend! No, better, I want to be your _lover_! Here, let me kiss you senseless!” Lila was screaming instead. 

When Marinette heard that, she squeaked uncomfortably and increased her running speed. Not that Adrien could blame her. Being run after by a heart eyed Lila wanting to kiss him would have freaked out even him. Lila didn’t seem to want to let Chloé get between Marinette and her. She even played dirty by elbowing Chloé in the ribs mid breath, leaving the poor girl crouched down on herself, nearly in tears. Yet Chloé rose back and started running after them again.

Adrien scratched his head: this was the most absurd situation he had ever witnessed. When the trio passed in front of him, he managed to grab Chloé by the collar. “What’s going on, Chloé, is this a joke?” he asked warily, but Chloé started screaming bloody murder and trying to detangle from his touch as if he was something horrible and dirty.

“Leave me alone, you idiot! You’re making me lose sight of _Marikins_!” She slapped his hand away and ran to reach Marinette again. 

Adrien was left with his eyes, and his mouth, wide open. He moved his gaze around the hall and saw a lot of other strange things. Nathaniel and Marc were having an argument (from what he could hear, over the fact that Nathaniel’s sketches didn’t match Marc’s character’s inner turmoil), Juleka and Rose were fighting on the ground, Rose holding in her hand a full strand of Juleka’s hair that she must have just pulled off her head. Ivan was running after Mylène saying that he would kill her. Even Max was having an argument with Markov. 

What on Earth…?

“Oh my!” whispered Plagg from inside his shirt’s pocket. “This would be hilarious if it wasn’t scary. At least, the bit with Pigtails would be.”

Adrien was going to retort that Plagg had a really weird sense of humour, when his gaze met the blue eyes of Alix, who sat down on a bench in the middle of the courtyard. 

He moved closer to her. “What’s going on, Alix? Has everyone gone mad?”

“Oh, you’re back, Adrien. Nah…” She gave him a dismissive gesture. “It’s been like this for a few minutes, since that thing appeared.” She pointed to the side of the courtyard and Adrien finally saw it. It looked like a weird hybrid figure, half Kim and half Ondine. 

Kim’s half had a bat-like wing behind it and Ondine’s one had a bird-like wing, both the same size and perfectly balanced. Dark Cupid 2.0? The akuma was dressed in red and black, looking almost identical to the Dark Cupid akuma he and Ladybug had faced the previous Valentine’s Day. It also had a bow in its hands, exactly like the previous Dark Cupid. Only, Adrien noted that instead of shooting arrows, the akuma was launching beams of light at people through its bow. When they were hit, people were crouching to the ground and then they would stand up, look at someone and start either pursuing them like their biggest fan, or running after them to kill them. He ducked a beam of light that came very close to his head and hid behind the bench.

“Are you not hiding, Alix?” he asked.

Alix smirked. “There’s no point for me to hide. I’ve been hit already.”

“Oh,” said Adrien from behind the bench, “Why aren’t you running after someone then?”

She looked at him funny. “No idea. I suppose it’s because I don’t really love or hate anyone here. I mean, here in school the only one who’s ever been able to strike my competitive side is Kim, and he’s the akuma. There are a few others among my roller skater friends, but they’re not here. So… there’s nobody really for me to focus my anger or love against.”

“I see,” mused Adrien. 

“Take yourself, for example,” continued Alix. “I like you, but I don’t love you, you’re _just a friend,_ using your own words.” She smirked and Adrien gave her a nervous nod, not really being sure what reaction he was expected to have. “Hence, I can talk to you without problems even if I have been hit. I suppose that, to be following or going against someone, you need to really love them, or really hate them.”

Adrien put a hand to his chin. “Makes sense,” he muttered to himself. “The more a person loves another, the more they will hate them if they get hit.”

“Exactly. And speaking of which… _You_ better go hide, Adrien,” said Alix with a sly smile. “I may not love you, but there will be _a lot_ of people who will want to kill you, even just in this school alone.”

He gave her a grateful look. Nice of her to give him a reason to end the conversation (which was getting a little awkward, to be fair) and transform. “That’s right, thanks, Alix. I’ll go hide in the locker room.” 

Easy peasy. He managed to hide behind different walls, columns and objects and reach the locker’s room’s door. Only when he was opening the door he heard someone screaming, “Adrien! Don’t you dare hide away!” But it was too late and he had managed to slip inside, and then run to one of the open lockers and hide in it, getting out of view.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

When Chat Noir emerged from the locker’s room, he looked around and couldn’t see Ladybug anywhere. Was his Lady late? So unusual… she was almost always there before he did. He hid behind a column and took a good look around, trying to assess the situation. But it didn’t take long before he heard a familiar thump behind him and his Lady’s scent filled his nostrils. 

“Good afternoon, My Lady,” he said, without looking at her to not lose track of the situation around him. “You sound out of breath.”

In fact, Ladybug seemed to be panting hard, as if she had just ran a marathon. “Hi, chaton, what have we got here?” she asked. 

He grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her to the wall, hiding from view as he filled her in. “The Akuma is like a Dark Cupid 2.0. I know, Hawkmoth is lacking creativity today.” He sniggered a little and Ladybug raised an eyebrow, so he continued, “I believe that this version is far more dangerous, though. First of all, there’s no way of recognising whether someone was hit or not. At least last time people’s lips turned black; not this time, they stay the same. Its bow fires beams of light and when people are hit they react to the first person they see when they open their eyes. Or, as far as I understood, the first person they see that they have feelings for. If they love the person they will try to kill them, if they hate the person they’ll become their greatest fan. Indifference or just plain friendship seems to be the key for survival.”

“Wow,” said Ladybug, but for some reason she didn’t seem surprised or shocked, just very tired. “That sounds awful.”

“It is. I also suspect that the vehemence the victim pursues or attacks the other is proportional to the intensity of the feelings they feel for that person.” His eyes darted circumspectionally around, trailing the akuma to ensure they were safe. “Ask Marinette: the two girls who hate her the most were running after her earlier, wanting to kiss her and fighting among each other for her attention. I’ve never seen a person run faster. Plagg was in stitches.” He saw the glare that Ladybug shot at him and added, “I wasn't laughing, M’lady. Only Plagg was.” 

He saw her turning around to glare at him again and then, everything happened very fast. He heard Alya’s voice shout, “Watch out!”; he darted his gaze around and saw the Akuma smirking at them with its bow pointing at them. Then Adrien saw the flashing light of a beam hitting them and closed his eyes, but didn’t feel it passing through his skin. He felt no different. When he opened his eyes, he saw why. _Ladybug_ had put herself in front of him.

“NO!” he shouted. Ladybug’s body pushed against his, her arms on his arms, her head buried on his chest. 

“It’s okay, chaton. For once I took the hit. I can't rely on you doing that every single time.”

His heart skipped a beat. “My Lady, you shouldn’t have done that. I don’t want to fight you.”

“I'm tired of being the one to fight _you_ , minou.” 

He noticed that she was still having her face buried in his chest, probably to keep her eyes closed and not look at anyone. He shuddered. Probably she was going to be just normal with him. Too many times she had explained to him that he was her best friend and _‘just a partner’_ . He would need to bear the indifference, although his heart would break a little in the certainty that friendship was all his Lady had ever felt towards him, for real. But, he considered, God forbid if she would look at Chloé or Lila first, or if her gaze would find by accident the boy she loved. No, the latter was definitely something he _wouldn’t_ have been able to bear. 

“You can look at _me_ , Buginette, it’s okay. I’ve got thick skin, I can take you acting normal with me. Just… hope you won’t _pursue_ me; my heart would br—” he was saying, but Ladybug’s sudden movement caught him unprepared. She moved her head and looked at him. And as she did that, her bluebell eyes widened. She frowned as a devious light started shining through her face. A light that never, not even in a million years would Chat Noir expect to see. 

_Hatred_. And rage. Pure, utter rage.

“ _Pursue_ you? Ha, as if! You think I would _pursue_ you, chaton? Think again!” She roared and as Chat Noir’s face became as white as a sheet, she pounced on him trying to put her hands around his neck and strangle him. 

* * *

* * *

**Author’s Note:**

**Hey again! I know, I know, you may be thinking: what’s going on? Two updates in a day? Yep. This story was long overdue anyway. It was meant for Valentine’s Day, but I never got to finish it until today. Lack of time sadly. But… it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s close enough to V-day and I hope you’ll like it! So… Happy _belated_ Valentine’s Day, everyone!**

**Poor Chat Noir, he doesn’t really know what’s coming for him! Are you curious? I guess you’ll need to come back next week and see! I’ll update once a week!**

**PS: don't look at the price tag of that cat's eye tanzanite I linked. The picture was only to show you the effect of the cat's eye tanzanite (which by the way is one of the rarest gemstones in the world). Of course Adrien wouldn't buy a 19 ct stone for Marinette's ring. I would say that stone on the ring is 1 ct maximum, probably more 0.5 ct. I know he thinks it was expensive, but definitely he didn't spend 20,000 euros on it! Just in case you wondered!)**

**In the next instalment of “Dark Cupid 2.0”:**

**— “I hope you like Whiskas,” she hissed. Alya paled. “Give me five minutes, I’ll bring you some Chat-paté!”**

**— “I wonder what sound the neck of a cat-boy snapping makes,”**

**— “Guess you need to s-** **_cat_ ** **, M’lady, unless you want to reveal to the world your identity as well as the feelings you have for me.”**

 **Last but not least, if you read this and you’re not part of our wonderful Discord server already, but you enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join our Discord server,** [ **Miraculous Fanworks** ](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) **(for people on FFN, discord dot gg slash mlfanworks). See you there soon, and see you next week here with chapter 2!**


	2. A Scary Ladybug

He ran. As fast as he could. She threw her yoyo at him and tried to hit him, once, twice, multiple times. She’d throw the yoyo with such fury that the walls of the school and the floor would get damaged by the impact, and pretty badly.

“Come here,  _ minou, minou _ . Let me take you to the vet so you can get NEUTERED!” 

She must have seen a glimpse of him in the hiding place he had found behind a tree, because a sudden explosion made the tree disappear and exposed Chat Noir to the raging eyes of his Lady. He ran again, using his baton to propel himself and ending up on the rooftop of the school, but Ladybug followed him. 

“Let me catch you,  _ minou _ ! I’ll skin you alive and stuff you with straw! You’ll make a great decoration for my bedroom!”

She hit him again with the yoyo making him lose balance, and Chat Noir screamed as he propelled himself backwards and fell on the ground on his back. Ouch, the pain at his backside hit him like a slap to the face, but it was nothing compared to the knot in his insides when Ladybug reached him and grabbed him by the collar, bringing his face mere millimeters from hers. He gulped awkwardly at the sneer that disfigured her whole face, but he couldn’t get himself to move, or do anything else, for the matter. He was totally at her mercy and thought for a second that he was going to die. 

Well, dying by the hand of Ladybug was totally worth it. Right?

Suddenly, he saw something hitting Ladybug. It was a school bag — more precisely,  _ Alya’s  _ schoolbag. At least he thought it was Alya’s, based on the way the girl was standing a couple of metres from them and panting hard. He took advantage of the fact that Ladybug had moved her head to glare at the brunette and had slightly loosened the iron grip on his collar and he used his baton to propel himself up.

“You know, M’lady, of all the ways I had imagined to find out that you love me, being nearly killed by you during an akuma attack wasn’t one!” He jumped on the next rooftop, his eyes not losing sight of his enraged partner, who now looked even more angry.

“How dare you!” she screamed. Chat Noir wasn’t sure if she had said that to him or to Alya, but he decided it was the latter. At least, Ladybug growled and glared at Alya. “I hope you like Whiskas,” she hissed. Alya paled. “Give me five minutes, I’ll bring you some Chat-paté!” 

She used her yoyo to follow him, and he started running some more, jumping around to duck the hits of her yoyo. Finally, after yet another hit of her yoyo that had made the chimney of one of the buildings they were running on fall, the cloud of debris and mortar that followed the hit was too strong and went into Ladybug’s eyes, allowing Chat Noir to jump down from the rooftops and hide behind a bench in the park. The thought crossed his mind of releasing his transformation so that he wouldn't be anymore the target of his Lady. But a quick glance at the park in front of him changed his mind. He saw Wayhem and a few other of his fans, staggering around looking like zombies, a piece of paper (was that a photo of him?) in their hands.

“Adrieeeeeeen…. Where are you??” some of them muttered. He gulped awkwardly, the words of his detransformation dying in his throat. 

“There’s hundreds of them all over town. Never seen that many people wanting to kill one single boy,” said Alya’s voice from next to him, giving him a half heart attack. He was sure that his heart had been damaged by the sudden scare. He looked at his right and saw that Alya and Nino were hiding just beside him. He put a hand on his heart, suddenly even more relieved to not have detransformed. Otherwise now he would have had a hell of a lot more problems at hand, AND his Lady would have been mad at him even  _ after _ the akuma was dealt with.

“How am I going to purify the akuma with Ladybug out of the question?” he asked himself, not realising that he was saying it out loud. 

“You kiss her,” said Nino, causing him to jump out of his skin. He  _ what _ ? He gave Nino a terrified look and his friend continued, “Ladybug, I mean, not he akuma. If you manage to get close enough to her without being skinned. Dude, Alya was bad with me, but bloody hell, Ladybug is on a mission to cut you into tiny pieces and eat you for dinner.”

“K-kiss Ladybug?” He gulped even more awkwardly than before.

“Yes, cat boy, you kiss her. Nino kissed me after I got hit. That’s the reason why I’m not out there trying to butcher him.” She looked at him and must have noticed the flash of plain horror that crossed his eyes, because she laughed and poked him in his ribs. “Well, she did kiss you last year, didn’t she? You can consider this payback time.” She gave him a smug look as he gulped again. “What is it, cat boy, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

“Alya, leave him alone. Look at him,” said Nino pointing at his face. “I’ve never seen him that pale and out of breath.”

Alya laughed. “Yes, I would be like that too if Ladybug was looking for me to skin me alive.” She giggled. “You should do something to counteract her, though, cat-boy. If you don’t want her to kill you for real, I mean. You know, something like…  _ fight  _ against her. You’re letting her walk all over you!  _ Do something _ !”

Chat Noir looked down. “I know… but I just can’t get myself to. I-I can’t hit her. I can’t bring myself to fight her.” 

Nino gasped. “Dude, you’re screwed!” he muttered under his breath. Chat Noir sighed but knew that his friends were right. If she managed to catch him, he was  _ royally  _ screwed. 

“I can’t believe she had this reaction, though! Now that she had it, she can’t take it back. That’s it.” Alya sniggered and slapped Chat Noir’s back. “My ship is sailing!!”

“Ouch! That hurt, Alya!” he muttered a little bit louder. As he did, he heard an explosion very close to his left leg; he turned around slowly and saw, to his immense horror, that the bench they were hiding behind had blown up and a devilish looking Ladybug was smirking right in front of him. With an elegant gesture — he had to give it to her, she was  _ extremely  _ sexy and elegant in her anger — she twirled her yoyo and wrapped it around his body.

“Well, well, well,” she said in a mocking tone. “Let’s see what my fishnet has caught this time.” She pulled the yoyo cord, forcing him to get close to her. “Oh, look! A cat-boy! How charming…” With vicious elegance, she wrapped some of her yoyo’s cord around his neck, causing him to start sweating and pale even further. 

“Please, Bu- _ Ladybug _ . Please… I can’t fight you. Please don’t—” 

“I wonder what sound the neck of a cat-boy snapping makes,” she interrupted him and moved her face so close to his that he could feel her breath tickling his jaw. “Shall we give it a go?”

He felt a jolt of adrenaline rushing through his body as the cord tensed around his neck. But he couldn’t think about what to do, because he suddenly heard Alya behind him shout, “Watch out, Chat Noir!” and he saw with the corner of his eye a flash of light getting close to him from his right. He reacted instinctively, by jerking on the side to duck the beam. Ladybug wasn’t expecting such a reaction and his fast movement made her lose balance, so they both fell to the ground and rolled around, until she was laying on her back and he was on top, a tree hiding them from the eyes of the akuma. 

“LET ME GO!!! Don’t you dare touch me with your filthy hands! GET OFF ME!” shouted Ladybug trying to detangle from underneath him. 

He smirked. It was now or never.

“Sorry, M’lady, but I can’t possibly do that.” And he kissed her. He felt her moan and wiggle a bit more under him, as a loud squeal from his left told him that this scene was going to be all over the Ladyblog, and probably being broadcast live. 

A part of his brain wanted to break the kiss, hoping that what he had done was going to be enough to get rid of the spell, but his heart went into a halt when he felt Ladybug’s body starting to relax. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her hands ran through his hair and her tongue pushed on his lips. Lips that opened a little in surprise, which his Lady took as an invitation to proceed and deepened the kiss, sending shivers down his spine. 

His head spun, giving him a feeling of dizziness as his vision seemed to blur and he started feeling a sense of déjà vu. Suddenly, he felt a jolt in his stomach as a big flash passed through his mind and the memory or another, very similar kiss came back to him. A kiss that had happened just a year before, and again due to that akuma. He got lost in the dual sensation of the memory and the kiss that was happening right there and then. 

His hands started running over her body and reached her hair, clenching around the sides of her head and sinking into the soft silkiness of her dark curls. _ Bloody hell _ , he thought, cursing silently at what a liar Ladybug had been. That kiss he just remembered hadn’t been only ‘a little kiss to wake him up’, as she had told him. Nope. It hadn’t been platonic at all. And neither had this one been. 

He broke the kiss to breathe and looked at her. She opened her eyes and he felt so relieved to find out that the hatred, and the rage, had long gone. She was panting hard and her face was nearly the same colour of her mask.

“What…? Why…?” she stammered looking around, and then back at him, in pure confusion.

He felt heat rushing to his face. “Y-you were hit, My Lady, sorry! I had to do it, you wanted to kill me.” To prove it, his hand ran to his neck, releasing the cord of her yoyo still firmly wrapped around it.

“Oh,” she said. 

He moved into a sitting position and grabbed her hand to help her up. Then he met her gaze and put a soft kiss on her knuckles that made Ladybug’s face turn even more deep red. “We’ll talk later, okay? Now let’s destroy this akuma, Buginette.”

“Oh, yes. The akuma. Right!” said Ladybug, as if waking up from a dream. They looked around, realising that they had rolled quite a distance and had ended up behind a large tree; more precisely, they were lying between said large tree and the metal fence that enclosed the park. Alya and Nino were hiding behind the tree in front of them and Alya winked at them and gave them a thumbs up, which caused Chat Noir to smirk, but Ladybug to become crimson. 

“My Lady? It may be a good time for the Lucky Charm?” whispered Chat Noir in Ladybug’s ear. She turned towards him and blinked, looking the image of confusion. 

“The…” she started but then, a gleam of understanding passed through her eyes. “Oh, yes. Lucky charm!” she whispered, raising a hand. A large, shiny plate in the shape of a heart fell in her arms. She blinked a couple of times looking at her own reflection coming from its shiny surface, then looked at Chat Noir and whispered, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

He raised an eyebrow. “No idea, Buginette. You’ll solve the puzzle as you always do, I trust you.” 

They ducked a couple of beams of light, and Ladybug didn’t seem to be any wiser as of how to use her Lucky Charm. She still looked quite dazed. Until her earrings beeped their third beep and the girl finally looked at Chat Noir’s hand, then at the plate, then at the beams of light that came out of the bow, and smirked. “Gotcha!” she said and came out in full view. 

“Hey, Dark Cupid? Wanna break more hearts?” she shouted and put the heart shaped plate right in front of her face. 

Dark Cupid laughed. “How stupid of you, Ladybug, coming out in the open!” As it said so, it threw a beam of light straight at the polka dotted heroine. 

Her smirk widened in triumph as she moved the plate to reflect the beam of light and sent it back towards the akuma. 

“Mirror-like surfaces reflect the light!” she muttered under her breath as the akuma got hit and staggered badly in pure confusion. “Chat Noir, now! Cataclysm the bow!”

Chat Noir smirked behind her and jumped up using his baton, reaching the akuma that was floating in mid air. “Clever as usual, My Lady! CATACLYSM!” and his hand hit the bow, causing it to crush into powder, but nothing came out of it. Then, he saw a phone sitting inside the chest pocket of the akuma. He grabbed it and made it fall to the ground, smashing it. This released the butterfly, which Ladybug promptly captured and released, white and purified 

“Bye bye, little butterfly,” said Ladybug with a smile, waving at the small insect flying away in the cloudless sky before throwing the plate in the air and releasing the Miraculous Cure. 

Then, the two heroes approached Kim and Ondine, who had reappeared after the akuma had gotten wrapped into a canopy of purple energy. Ladybug kneeled down and looked softly at Kim. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, what happened?” said both Kim and Ondine as they sat up from the ground and put a hand on their heads. 

“You were akumatised,” said Chat Noir, sitting on his knees in a frog-like pose. 

Kim winced. “Ugh… it must have been because of that picture that Chloé sent. I got so heartbroken that she would post it again.”

“I got upset too, for Kim’s sake. And we were both touching the phone at the time. Probably that’s why we got akumatised together.” Ondine hugged him and he buried his head in her chest. 

Ladybug put a hand on his shoulder, causing him to break contact with his girlfriend and look at her. “It’s pointless to get upset over the actions of bullies like Chloé, Kim. She’s jealous of you because it’s Valentine’s Day and she doesn’t have a date, while you do. Enjoy your day with your girlfriend.” 

Kim nodded. 

“Will you be okay?” she asked then, and when both Kim and Ondine nodded and stood up from the ground, Ladybug heard a further beep coming from her earrings, and stood up, immediately mimicked by Chat Noir.

“Guess you need to s- _ cat _ , M’lady, unless you want to reveal to the world your identity as well as the feelings you have for me.” She turned her head as fast as light towards Chat Noir, who was very smug, looking intently at his claws on his hand. 

“My feel… what are you talking about, chaton?” she asked, stunned. 

“I suggest you watch the blog, Buginette.” He winked at her and blew her a kiss, which made Ladybug blush to the roots of her hair.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Chat Noir, but you’re right about something. I need to go. Bug out!” Without even looking at him, she zipped her yoyo to the closest building and used it to propel herself out of the way.

Chat Noir could only sigh and look with a small smile at her figure fading away in the distance. 

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

When she landed inside the girls’ washroom of Collège Françoise Dupont just seconds before de-transforming, she locked herself up in one of the cubicles and sat on the toilet seat, feeling completely deflated. Tikki came out of her earrings and twirled around, ending on her lap. Marinette took a macaron out of her purse and gave it to her, smiling a little as her red friend grabbed the macaron gratefully and began chewing on it.

“What happened, Marinette?” asked the little ladybug kwami when her stomach had finally filled a little.

Marinette sighed, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes closed. “I don’t know, Tikki. Chat Noir mentioned something about watching the Ladyblog. I… what could I have done to cause such a reaction from him?”

“There’s only one way to find out!” Tikki flew into Marinette’s purse, but emerged a few seconds later, looking a little shaken. “Marinette, your phone is missing!”

“My phone?” asked the girl and she also checked her small purse, but it was indeed empty. “This is a disaster! I had all my list of commissions on my phone, if I lose it, I’m screwed!”

“Don’t panic, Marinette. Let’s go look for it!”

They spent the following fifteen minutes looking aimlessly around the school, but to Marinette’s greatest disappointment, they couldn’t find anything; her phone had literally vanished. Slumping her shoulders in defeat, Marinette headed back to class. Maybe, she thought, she had left her phone on her desk. Or at least, she hoped so.

* * *

* * *

**Author’s Note:**

**Here’s chapter 2. Hope you liked it ^-^ well… Chat Noir was quite smug wasn’t he? XD Hope you will like what is coming :) Are you curious? I guess you’ll need to come back next week and see!**

**In the next installment of “Dark Cupid 2.0”:**

**— “I thought you were over her and that you had a ring and a card in your bag for Pigtails.”**

**— “I can’t give up on her. I-I think I love her.”**

**— Ladybug. That was Ladybug. She wasn’t wearing her mask. That was civilian Ladybug in front of him. Why couldn't he make out her face? Hang on a second, did she know his name?**

**Last but not least, if you read this and you’re not part of our wonderful Discord server already, but you enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join our Discord server,** [ **Miraculous Fanworks** ](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) **(for people on FFN, discord dot gg slash mlfanworks). See you there soon, and see you next week here with chapter 3!**


	3. Memories

When Adrien jumped inside the boys’ washroom at Collège Françoise Dupont, he still had an entire minute to spare. He sighed, hid himself in one of the cubicles and released his transformation, catching Plagg in his cupped hands. He twirled around, gave Plagg a small kiss on the top of his head, right between his ears, and let himself fall sitting on the toilet seat. He leaned his back against the cold tiles on the wall, letting out a little sigh as he closed his eyes happily.

“She loves me,” he told Plagg. “Can you believe that after over a year she finally loves me?”

He felt Plagg picking up his cheese from the pocket of his shirt. The distinctive stench of Camembert reached his nostrils, telling him that Plagg was now floating near his face. 

“Right,” muttered his black friend, his mouth full of cheese. “I thought you were over her and that you had a ring and a card in your bag for Pigtails.”

At that, Adrien opened his eyes wide. Bugger! In his euphoria that Ladybug had finally shown that she would reciprocate his feelings, he had completely forgotten about his decision. His shoulders drooped and his lips curled into a pout.

“You’re right, Plagg. I’m a mess.” He sighed. “I don’t deserve a girl as wonderful and fantastic as Marinette. Maybe I should forget this whole thing and desist from talking to her.”

Plagg ate the last crumble of Camembert and put a paw to his forehead, shaking his head with a massive frown. “I refuse to _believe_ this!” he shouted. “After MONTHS of you pining after Marinette, and trying to find the best present for her, and trying to find the best _picture_ for that bloody card of yours, and telling me day and night how wonderful, how fantastic, how extraordinary Marinette is, how blind you had been to not notice that you liked her sooner. After the tears of _joy_ you cried when Nino told you that she had broken up with Guitar-boy… AFTER I HAD TO ENDURE ALL THAT YOU’RE NOW SAYING THAT YOU WON’T CONFESS?”

“I don’t deserve her, Plagg! She’s such a wonderful girl, and I’m here just being swept off my feet only because I have a sniff that Ladybug may actually like me. She doesn’t deserve to be a second choice!”

“Ladybug has given you hints other times, but she never followed through. For example, when you faced that Oblivio akuma. And so many other times. You may not have seen it, but I have. The looks she was giving you when you were flirting with Rena and Ryuuko—”

“I wasn’t flirting with Rena and Ryu—”

“ _Paw-_ lease. Lie to someone else. I was there.” Plagg flew up to his forehead and slapped it. 

“And I haven’t seen her giving me any looks!”

Plagg snorted. “Because you didn’t notice, _gamin_. She was. And the time you didn’t ‘pound it’ to bring Kagami home. She was devastated!”

“What are you talking about? I’ve never not ‘pounded it’ with M’Lady!”

Plagg facepalmed. “Sure you did, Adrien. Right. Does Onichan remind you of anything?”

Adrien closed his eyes and put a hand to his forehead to concentrate. The migraine that was starting to seep through his head didn’t help, but he went through his memory of the time Kagami changed into Onichan. He was certain that— 

“Oh shoot. You’re right. I didn’t ‘pound it’ that day.”

Plagg smirked. “Yeah. I’m always right, _gamin_.”

Adrien shook his head and put a hand on his forehead, That migraine was getting stronger. Maybe he should go to the nurse and ask for a pain killer. 

“You know what, Plagg? You ARE right. I can't keep putting my life on hold for Ladybug.”

Plagg smirked and gave him a smug look. He started floating on his back and looked with great interest at his paws. “You can definitely say that, Adrien. Remember that you’re a cat. His Majesty, the Black Cat. You’re not a puppy ready to jump at her every whim. You have some dignity!”

“Ouch,” whimpered Adrien, his hand pushing hard on his forehead, his eyes closed. He shook his head again. The migraine was really starting to affect him. “Y-yes, I-I should be happy too, right? I really like Marinette. Those feelings haven’t changed. I can’t give up on her. I-I think I love her.”

Adrien blushed crimson. As he thought that, his migraine became even stronger and he felt he was losing control. He put both hands on his forehead and groaned in pain, and his head started pounding, literally pulsing against his palms.

“What now?” asked Plagg, giving him, despite what looked like his best judgement (at least Adrien thought that, because Plagg had been floating annoyedly at his side with his paws folded on his tiny chest and his tail had been flicking back and forth), a concerned look. 

“I-I don’t know. My head is spinning,” muttered Adrien as the pain spread at the front of his head. “It’s like when I was kissing Ladybug today and—”

“And?” Plagg was now floating right in front of his nose.

“I saw a flash in my head and I remembered the kiss I exchanged with Ladybug last Valentine’s Day.” He shook his head and groaned even more. “Oh God, this is so painful!”

He squeezed his eyes shut and fell to the ground on his knees, screaming. Plagg’s ears went flat on his head and he started zipping around Adrien, patting him everywhere to try to soothe him. 

“Adrien? Adrien are you okay? What’s going on?”

Plagg’s voice seemed to come from a very far distance. 

Pain. 

His whole world was all made of pain. Pain that started from his forehead and sprang across his head to reach his nape, almost trying to come out of his skull. Pain that became stronger and more intense every second. 

“Adrien?” called Plagg again. His kwami’s voice exploded in a flash of white. 

_He saw himself looking at his ID card._

_“Adrien Agreste,” he heard his voice saying._

_“Super nice to meet you, Adrien!” he heard someone’s voice say back. That voice… that voice was painfully familiar. Why was it so familiar? He saw a girl in pigtails curtseying at him._

**Ladybug** _. That was Ladybug. She wasn’t wearing her mask. That was_ **civilian** _Ladybug in front of him. Why couldn't he make out her face? Hang on a second, did she know his name? When did she find out? Oh yeah, he had just told her. What was going on? Where were they? It looked like a bathroom, but it could be just because he was right now in a bathroom. His head was spinning so badly._

He managed to get out of his hallucination and turned around hugging the toilet seat. He felt a weight as heavy as a stone in his stomach as the pain in his head sprang again. Oh God he was going to get sick! He gagged a bit and got up on his knees, ready to throw up in the bowl, but nothing came out. 

“Adrien?” he managed to open his eyes full of tears and gave a quick glance at his furry friend. 

“I-I just had a flash in my head. Oh God it was so painful. Don’t know when or how, but I saw a _civilian_ Ladybug, with no mask, talking to me. She knew my name. Well, I had just told her.” 

“You had _what_?” asked Plagg, a frown full of concern furrowing his brows. “She had no mask? You know that she’s *BURP*?” Plagg burped purple bubbles. “No, the magic of the Miraculous isn’t letting me say her name, you still don't know who she is.”

“Her face was kind of blurred. What’s happening to me Plagg?” As he said that, he felt the pulse of pain spread again across his whole head and he screamed even louder because it was getting worse.

_“Listen,” Ladybug's voice was saying. She seemed to be talking to someone on her phone. The name on the screen said ‘Mr Turtle’. “I can’t remember who I am or who you are. Oblivio has erased my memory. But I think I'm supposed to call you.”_

Oblivio? Adrien groaned. Suddenly it all made more sense. Was he remembering Oblivio? Why? Didn’t the Miraculous Cure wipe his memories out?

_The voice on loudspeaker coming from the phone sighed. “You did the right thing. Is Chat Noir with you?” He looked at his Lady’s face, but he still wasn’t able to make out her features. The voice on the phone sounded Master Fu. Oh yes, it made sense. Mr Turtle._

_Ladybug giggled nervously. “Yeah,” she said, “well, Adrien, actually.”_

_Fu gasped. “You two know your true identities, then.”_

_He met his Lady’s gaze again. “We're not supposed to?” he heard himself say._

Another pang of pain ran through his head. More flashes of light. 

_Them in a bathroom cubicle, very similar to the one he was in now. Ladybug pointed to an open vent. Someone seemed to be kicking and breaking all the doors of the cubicles next to them. They barely got into the vent and closed it behind them that even the door of the cubicle they were in sprang open. Adrien breathed a sigh of relief and followed his Lady into the air duct._

_Pink. His vision was filled with pink. She was wearing pink trousers. Very familiar pink trousers. Why were those trousers so familiar? And were those ballet shoes she had on her feet?_

_“You seem like someone who always has the right idea at the right time!” he heard himself say._

_Ladybug sighed in front of him. “I hope you're right.”_

The light in his head flashed again. The pain was unbearable. He screamed so loudly that he heard the door of the boys' washroom sprung open in the distance.

“Who’s in here?” It was the voice of M. D'Argencourt. Shoot!

“Uh, Monsieur D'Argencourt, it’s me, Adrien Agreste!” he managed to say but he couldn't muffle a groan of pain as soon as he said that.

“Are you all right, Monsieur Agreste? I heard a scream.” The voice of his fencing professor sounded concerned.

Adrien winced. “Yes, I’m okay. Just a migraine. I’ll be out soon.”

“I recommend you go to the nurse and get sent home, Monsieur Agreste. If it made you scream like that, it’s not just a migraine. Maybe you’re coming up with something.”

Adrien sighed. “Thank you, Professor. I will, as soon as I get out of here.”

He heard the man cough politely. “Alright. Just let me know if you need anything.” After he said that, Adrien heard the bathroom door open and close again and realised that he was now alone.

Good. Just in time, because the migraine was coming back even stronger. He felt a surge of nausea come to his throat and he went on his knees again, staring into the toilet bowl. He gagged some more. 

_“I want to fight beside you,” he heard himself saying as he picked up a white pipe. “If we're a couple, then we'll be stronger together.”_

A couple? His heart skipped a beat. Why was his brain showing him this just now that he had decided that he would leave Ladybug behind? Was it some sort of sadistic joke?

_He noticed that Ladybug was wearing her spots again. She looked at him in a way that she had never, ever looked at him before. “But you don't have your kwami or your superpowers. And without your costume, the villain would know your true identity.”_

_Adrien looked down dejectedly and sighed. She grabbed the hand he was holding the pipe with and she continued, “But most of all, I wouldn't want anything to happen to you. I'm starting to understand how much you mean to me, Adrien.” And as she said that, she kissed him on the cheek. Adrien’s heart skipped another beat as she started to jump backwards and said, waving at him, “Please, stay there. Ladybug is here to protect you!”_

“Why? Why show me this? Why now?” he screamed. His hands went to his temples, his eyes firmly shut as tears rolled down his cheeks. 

Again excruciating pain.

_“Wait,” he said, grabbing her hand with his. She had a red and black polka dotted teapot in her hands and his gesture caught her in mid air and prevented her from throwing it in the sky. “Do you think we'll remember all this… afterwards?”_

_Ladybug gave him a really sad look. “Apparently, my Miraculous Ladybug reverts everything, so I'm guessing we won't.”_

_He felt his heart breaking a little. “All right then. With your permission, M'Lady…”_

_The look she gave him. He had never seen in his entire life a more lovesick look than that one. She looked at him as if he were her whole world. The kiss sent a tingle down his very being as butterflies of the right kind filled his stomach. She was definitely reciprocating the kiss even then! And it also lasted quite some time._

Why? Why make him remember this? Why was the effect of the Miraculous Cure fading away?

Maybe because… Maybe he ought to remember that his Lady had given him plenty of hints that she actually fancied him all throughout the year they’d known each other. But she _chose_ to not act upon it. She chose to bottle up her evident (yes, now they really were evident to him!) feelings towards him and keep rejecting him, telling him that she loved someone else. Why would she do that? Why would she let herself and him suffer, if she reciprocated his feelings?

Plagg was right. Ladybug would never act upon her feelings. She would never accept his advances. He had to move on. 

And he hadn’t lied. In his heart he knew that he loved Marinette. Not as a friend, he loved her for real. The truth was that he would always have a part of his heart beating for Ladybug. He would never be able to _not_ love her. 

But… he loved _Marinette_ too. His feelings for her were _also_ real, strong and true. Somehow, loving one didn’t prevent him from loving the other just as much. 

He beamed as he stood from the toilet floor and looked at Plagg.

“Are you feeling better, _gamin_?” asked his furry friend, still looking quite shaken by Adrien’s previous behaviour.

“Yes, Plagg, I’m okay. I-I don’t know what happened. I… got flashes in my head of the time Ladybug and I faced Oblivio.”

Plagg looked even more worried now. “Don't tell me. You remembered kissing Ladybug then too and you decided to dump in the toilet everything we just spoke about.”

Adrien smiled softly and sat on the toilet again. “No, Plagg. I have set my heart on it. I _love_ Marinette. Remembering Oblivio has only cemented these feelings.”

Plagg seemed to look a little more grey in the face. "Did you remember who she is?"

Adrien kept staring at the toilet door in front of him with googly eyes. “No. Initially, I didn't understand why I was remembering all that. The things that she said. The way that she looked at me. She _did_ love me even then, Plagg. It's not something new.”

“Right?” Plagg pushed.

“She loved me but she chose to not do anything about it. So it doesn’t matter if I know now for sure that she has feelings for me. She made her choice and, evidently, her choice doesn't involve me.” He sighed. “I will never stop loving her.” He stroked softly his Miraculous on his right ring finger. “But I love Marinette too. I'm not entirely sure when I fell in love with her. Kagami is convinced that I've loved her all along.”

“She’s the only person with eyes, here,” muttered Plagg. 

Adrien scowled at him. “And maybe she’s right.” He saw the sly look that Plagg shot at him. “Okay, _you_ ’re right too. Thing is, I’m not going to sacrifice my happiness to wait for a yes that may never come.” He stood from the toilet seat, opened the door he was looking at so fondly and proceeded to wash his hands. 

“I’m proud of you, Adrien.”

Adrien beamed at him. “Thanks. Let’s go, Plagg. Let’s go tell Marinette that I love her.” He blushed and looked at his hands as he dried them. “As long as she’ll take me, of course.”

Plagg raised an eyebrow. “And yet, he’s still blind…”

* * *

**Author’s Note:**

* * *

**Here’s chapter 3. Hope you liked it ^-^ well… I know that wasn’t what you were expecting! Next chapter is for Marinette. She has her own turmoil to deal with, and it won't be pretty! Hope you will like what’s coming! :) Are you curious? I guess you’ll need to come back next week and see!**

**In the next instalment of “Dark Cupid 2.0”:**

**— “It’s okay, Marinette,” said Adrien looking at her with one of those looks that made her knees go weak. “Can I talk to you after you come back from the washroom?”**

**— “Nino told me I was bad when I was hit, but he also said that I was nothing compared to Ladybug. And I love Nino, Marinette, with all my heart.”**

**— “D-do I _love_ Chat Noir?”**

**— “When you fell in love with Adrien, Marinette, did you know who he was?”**

**Also, for the memories of Oblivio in this chapter and in the next two, big thanks to the Miraculous wiki (the Oblivio script is[here](https://miraculousladybug.fandom.com/wiki/Oblivio/Transcript))**

**Last but not least, if you read this and you’re not part of our wonderful Discord server already, but you enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join our Discord server,** [ **Miraculous Fanworks** ](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) **(for people on FFN, discord dot gg slash mlfanworks). See you there soon, and see you next week here with chapter 4!**


	4. A Shocking Realisation

As soon as Marinette came back inside her class, she rushed to her seat and looked on her desk, and into her bag, and on the floor.

“Have you lost anything, girl?” asked Alya.

Marinette sighed. “I can’t find my phone!” she said and groaned a little. “This is bad, Alya, I had all my commission info there. I must have lost it during the akuma attack.”

“I’m sorry, girl. Haven’t you got your commissions logged anywhere else?” Marinette looked at her friend for the first time since she had come back to the room. Alya was literally beaming. Marinette groaned again, knowing what was about to come. She tried to keep Alya’s focus on her missing phone for as long as he could.

“I suppose I can check my thousands of emails I received from my website and try to reconstruct my commissions from what I have stored there, but it’s going to take time. Can you help me look for it?”

Alya giggled. “I will help you, Marinette, but only if you dedicate your full attention to me for just a second.” 

Marinette huffed. There you go, she wasn’t able to keep Alya off her target for even a minute, apparently. 

“All right. Amaze me,” she deadpanned. Alya squealed and rubbed her own phone in Marinette’s face.

“Look what happened today, girl. LadyNoir is REAL!” Alya had put on her phone a video that she had loaded from the Ladyblog. Marinette’s eyes became as big as saucers as she saw Ladybug getting hit by the beam of light, her and Chat talking quietly (so quietly that Marinette couldn’t understand what they were saying), and then, Ladybug moving her head up and looking at Chat. 

Marinette’s heart skipped a beat. Ladybug was literally seething with anger. Her jaw dropped as she watched Ladybug jumping around Paris with all intention of cutting Chat Noir into pieces. She couldn't believe what she was looking at. No, that must be a joke, right? 3D animation? Cosplayers acting up? 

Something?

Anything? 

Please?

Without consciously realising it, her hands moved to her temples and her face paled ashen, starting to wear the most awkward of grimaces. And she paled further when she saw herself wrapping the yoyo cord twice around Chat Noir’s neck. She heard Alya shout to Chat Noir to be careful as a beam of light nearly hit him on the head, and saw both of them rolling over until they came out of view behind a tree. The video got all fizzy for a second. Marinette realised that Alya had been rolling too, and again she was the one filming them. Ladybug was screaming at Chat Noir to get off her and… Chat Noir kissed her.

And as she saw the kissing, the picture in the video faded into the one from her own memory, as she woke up from the akuma’ control. She remembered herself tensing, but then relaxing and letting herself go into the kiss. At the time, she didn’t know why. Now—a painful jolt twisted her stomach as the butterflies filled it and she started feeling dizzy. 

“Girl?” Alya’s voice sounded concerned now. 

Marinette blinked, as if waking up from a dream. “Uh, yes? Yes?” she muttered.

“You’re so pale. Are you sure you’re okay?” Alya put a hand on her forehead. “You don’t seem to have a fever.”

“I—I’m not feeling too well. I need the washroom.” She stood up and her vision faded as she staggered badly.

“Do you need me to come with you, Marinette?” asked Alya, always more concern in her voice, a frown furrowing her eyebrows.

“N-no. I’m good, I can walk.” But to her disappointment, she tripped on her own feet and started falling off the stairs, until she bumped on something warm and soft.

“Gotcha,” she heard someone say. She looked up and realised that she had fallen face first into Adrien’s chest.

“Uh. Sorry, Adrien…”

“Are you all right, Marinette? You look really pale,” said the blond, grabbing her hand with his and balancing her up firmly.

Marinette stared at their intertwined hands. Then she stared at the mere millimeters between their chests. “Uh. Yes, you’re good. I-I mean, I’m good. You’re perfect. I-I mean I feel  _ perfectly.  _ Fine. Yes, You’re fine. I’m fine. Gah!” She jumped off her skin when Alya put a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay, Marinette,” said Adrien looking at her with one of those looks that made her knees go weak. “Can I talk to you after you come back from the washroom?”

“Uh, yes you talk. We talk. I m-mean we can talk. Yes.”

“Girl, I’ll walk you to the washroom, you don’t seem very fine to me.” And that said, Alya saved Marinette from further embarrassment by grabbing the hand that Adrien wasn’t holding and pulling her away.

They walked to the washroom in silence, Marinette trying her best to not cross Alya’s gaze. When they reached the washroom, Alya looked at her and said, “Are you going to be okay from here, Marinette? I’ll help you look for your phone when you get back to class.”

“Thanks, Alya, I appreciate it.” Marinette made to get in the washroom, but Alya squealed again, causing Marinette to look at her. She was watching the video again.

“Can you believe how fierce Ladybug was, Marinette? After all this time! Now she has absolutely no way to deny it.”

“Deny what?” she asked curtly. She was starting to get a headache.

“That she loves Chat Noir,” said Alya simply, giving her a smug look as Marinette’s heart sank. “The poor boy was terrified. She nearly killed him.”

“Doesn’t really look like the behaviour of someone full of love,” Marinette deadpanned. 

Alya laughed. “Yes. Except that the power of this akuma was to make people who loved you hate you and people who hated you love you. You should know that; Lila and Chloé were running after you until I couldn't see you anymore. The love or hate display was in line with the strength of the feelings the person hit had for the other. And boy, Marinette. Nino told me I was bad when I was hit, but he also said that I was  _ nothing  _ compared to Ladybug. And I love Nino, Marinette, with all my heart.”

Marinette’s knees felt weak again and her vision blurred. “I-I really need the washroom, Alya. See you in a bit,” she whispered and unceremoniously, she left her best friend behind and disappeared in the washroom.

“I’ll wait for you in class then!” said Alya before the washroom’s door closed.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

When the washroom’s door closed, Marinette looked around to ensure that nobody was there, and then entered one of the cubicles, locked the door and sat on the toilet seat. She folded in on herself, clutching her stomach and willing the pain to go away. Her eyes screwed shut, her breath coming in short pants as her forehead rested lightly on her knees. Tikki flew out of Marinette’s small purse and started patting her head.

“I’m not okay, Tikki, before you ask.”

Tikki frowned. “Was it that bad, Marinette?” 

Marinette snapped her face up and glared at her kwami friend. “Bad? BAD? That was a DISASTER, Tikki! A disaster of ENORMOUS proportions! What happened to me? Why did I do those things to Chat Noir? I don’t love him that way!” Her gaze met Tikki’s scrutinous one. The little kwami had an eyebrow raised. “ _ Do I? _ ”

“Marinette, you were hit by that akuma. You couldn't fake anything, not even to yourself. What reaction did you have that terrified you so much? I was in your purse, and couldn't see the video.”

“I-I l-looked like a  _ psychopath _ .” She blushed crimson. “I attacked Chat Noir in a way I wouldn’t even have attacked Hawkmoth, Tikki. I wanted to kill him. I nearly snapped his neck!”

Tikki’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my—”

“And when he kissed me to break the spell,” she started.

Tikki flew to her face. “Yes?”

Marinette pulled her legs up and rested her feet at the border of the toilet lid. She crouched into herself, looking paler than ever, a hand on her mouth, her eyes sprang open. She stayed in that position for a long time, until eventually the bell that signalled the beginning of the next lesson rang, but Marinette didn’t seem to notice.

“Tikki?” she eventually asked, her voice shaking.

“What is it, Marinette?”

“T-Tikki?” she asked again, her voice only a low murmur, her eyes filling with tears, which she seemed unable to wipe.

Tikki looked at her expectantly.

“D-do I love Chat Noir?”

Tikki looked a bit worriedly at Marinette’s chest, which had raised and inflated with air, but wasn’t deflating. “Marinette, please breathe!”

“Oh my God, Tikki! This is a DISASTER! A total disaster! How could I have possibly fallen in love with Chat Noir? I had promised myself after Chat Blanc that I wouldn't fall in love with him. It’s too dangerous! I can't love him! I can’t love him! It’s impossible! I love  _ Adrien _ !”

Tikki saw the desperation in Marinette’s eyes. She saw her gleam of denial. The way that her holder was looking at her was the way that so many other Ladybugs had looked at her.

“ _ Do _ you love him?” she asked cautiously. Marinette moved her terrified gaze back to her.

“I d-don’t know, Tikki! You saw the power of the akuma today. Do you remember anything of when I was hit?” The terror in Marinette's gaze had faded into panic, and into pleading. She wanted Tikki to find a different solution to her problem, a solution that didn’t involve her loving her partner. 

Tikki lowered her gaze, and shook her head, sorry to disappoint Marinette with her answer. There was no other solution. And Marinette knew it. “I don’t remember what happened when you were hit, Marinette, but I felt your feelings when you were brought back.” She looked at Marinette straight in the eye. Her holder blushed crimson, her bottom lip starting to quiver as her chest stopped moving again. “Breathe, Marinette. Inhale. Exhale. Inh—”

“He kissed me without my consent.”

Tikki glared at her. NOPE. She wasn’t going to let her go that route to save her face. “ _ You _ did the same with  _ him  _ last Valentine’s day. He did it to  _ save you _ . Exhale, Marinette.”

Marinette’s face went from crimson to as pale as a sheet. “Yes, but I didn’t carry on kissing him when the spell was broken.” She glared at Tikki. 

“ _ Neither did he _ , Marinette. I know. I was there. Inhale, please. Inhale, Marinette. He only initiated the kiss but—” 

Marinette cupped both hands on her cheeks. “I kissed him back!” She dipped her nails into the skin under her eyes and scratched her cheeks slowly. “Oh my God, Tikki! I kissed him back! No wonder the cat was so smug. I kissed him. I wrapped my hands around his hair and kept his head there and kissed those lips senseless!” She moved her fists to her mouth. “I LIKED IT, TIKKI!”

“Exhale. EXHALE, MARINETTE! Yes, you kissed him. Yes, you liked it, I could feel it. Yes, you love him. So WHAT?” She hated shouting at her holders, and especially at Marinette, because she really liked the dark haired girl. But she had to wake her up from her terror.

“I’m a  _ horrible person _ , Tikki! I  _ still  _ love Adrien. I know I do, I crashed into him just minutes ago and couldn’t put two words together in front of him. Every time he looks at me, my heart starts somersaulting. I LOVE ADRIEN, Tikki!” She made a really odd cringing grimace that Tikki had seen her making only in presence of the very boy she was talking about. “Yet, there I go and kiss ANOTHER boy! I let that mangy alley cat worm his way into my heart! Even if I swore to myself that I wouldn’t.”

Tikki looked at Marinette with eyes full of sadness. She couldn’t tell her that she only loved one boy. That her heart had probably recognised him behind the mask from the first day they had met. Or the other way round to be fair, because Ladybug had met Chat Noir before Marinette had met Adrien. They were soulmates. Two sides of a whole. It was so painful, frustrating and infuriating to see those two poor souls dancing around each other, in plain sight, nearly shouting to one another, ‘Look at me, I’m RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF YOU!’ but not being heard. Not being seen. It was worse than any love triangle she had ever witnessed in her life as long as time. This love…  _ square _ . Tikki sincerely hoped that this love square madness was going to end soon. 

“I don’t even know  _ when  _ it happened,” said Marinette softly. “God, I think I have loved him since before New York. Must be why I was so angry at him for not telling me the truth. I was so desperate when he renounced his Miraculous that I let  _ Adrien _ go away without even saying anything. Alya had to push me to react. I was gobsmacked, Tikki!”

“Ye—” started Tikki, but Marinette grabbed her suddenly and brought her in line with her eyes. 

“When did I fall in love with him? Have I loved him all along and lied to myself from the very start?” Her eyes widened for the sudden realisation. “Oh. My. God!” 

She stood up from the toilet seat and leaned on the cubicle’s door, her forehead pressing hard on it, her eyes closed. 

“I’m a HORRIBLE person, Tikki.”

Tikki saw the tears falling off Marinette’s cheeks right onto the bathroom’s floor. She couldn’t leave her like this. She could attract an akuma if Hawkmoth was paying attention. 

“Marinette, you’re not a horrible person.”

“I am! How can I love two boys? I love them both, you see, Tikki? I love Adrien AND Chat Noir! I love them equally. In a different way, but equally. I can’t quantify my love for Adrien any more than what I felt for  _ mon minou _ when I was kissing him.”

“You’re NOT a horrible person, Marinette. People have loved more than one person for millennia. You can’t tell your heart who to love. Did you think that Guinevere loved Arthur any less than she loved Lancelot?” And in that case, Tikki thought, they  _ really  _ were two people! 

“Tikki, was she—?

Tikki nodded. “A holder. Yes. Guinevere was a Ladybug holder and Lancelot was her Black Cat.” She patted Marinette’s hair. “But don’t worry about the holders of the past, Marinette. Think of yourself. The feelings that you have for Adrien are strong and pure. And so are your feelings for Chat Noir. There’s nothing wrong in loving them both, until you’re ready.”

“Ready for what?” asked Marinette. “ _ How _ can I love Chat Noir? I don’t even know who he is!”

“When you fell in love with Adrien, Marinette, did you know who he was?” Tikki looked at her with curiosity. 

“I knew he was Adrien Agreste!” she mumbled.

Tikki sighed. “Yes, you knew that. Like you know that Chat Noir is, well, Chat Noir. Adrien Agreste is a _name_ , Marinette. It doesn’t define who Adrien is any more than the name Chat Noir defines the boy that lies behind the mask. Did you know the boy within, when you fell in love with Adrien?”

Marinette opened her mouth to answer at least four times. And then she closed it. And then she opened it again, her index finger pointing at Tikki all that time. Then she crashed on the toilet seat and slumped her shoulders. “You’re right. I didn’t need to know Adrien to fall in love with him. I fell in love with his kindness, with the way that he forgave me for my misjudgement and persevered until he put it right. I fell in love with his genuine laughter. I didn’t need to know everything about him to see that.”

“Yes,” said Tikki and then, she waited patiently. 

Marinette looked up at the door, her gaze lost into emptiness, mulling carefully what she was going to say next. Because saying it was going to make it  _ real _ . And after making it real, there was no way that she was going to be able to take it back. She could lie to Tikki, to her parents, even to Chat Noir or to Adrien. But she couldn’t lie to  _ herself _ . And by saying it out loud in that toilet cubicle, she was going to make it real to  _ herself _ .

Eventually, she sighed and continued with a shaky voice, “In the same way, I-I fell in love with Chat Noir. Oh my God, I really did! With his silly puns, with his courage, with his putting his heart on his sleeve. With his sincerity, with the way that he always genuinely expresses himself.” She turned her face to look at the little Ladybug kwami, her eyes wet with tears. “Oh, Tikki, when he confessed his feelings to me the night we faced Glaciator, my heart broke for him. I didn’t know why at the time. I thought that it was because I had completely misjudged him, but in reality… I loved him too.” Marinette looked at her hands and smiled a sad smile. “Why do I always fall for the guys I misjudge?”

Tikki was going to answer but as she was doing that, the door of the washroom opened and the kwami kept her mouth shut. 

“Marinette, are you all right?” That was Mlle. Bustier’s voice. “Some of your classmates said that you were feeling sick, so I thought of checking on you before I started my lesson.

Marinette’s heart started pounding in her chest. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands, flushed the toilet and got out of the cubicle, unable to meet her teacher’s gaze. Mlle. Bustier was quite big now and was going to go on maternity leave soon. Marinette thought that she would miss her teacher immensely. No other teacher would have come to the toilet to check up on her. Mlle. Bustier was one of a kind.

“Yes, thank you Mlle. I’m better now.” She washed her hands and followed her teacher back to the classroom.

But before they could reach the classroom, Monsieur Damocles called Mlle. Bustier. “Can I have a word, Caline? It’s about your leave.”

Mlle. Bustier looked at Marinette. “I trust you know how to get back to class. Tell everyone I will be back soon.”

* * *

**Author’s Note:**

* * *

**Here’s chapter 4. Hope you liked it ^-^ next chapter is the end. Yes, I know… already. Next chapter you will find out what happened to Marinette’s phone. And everything else :) Are you curious? I guess you’ll need to come back next week and see!**

**In the next and last instalment of “Dark Cupid 2.0”:**

**— “If you have a problem hearing my words because of your tinnitus, Lila, read my bloody lips. Leave. Marinette. Alone!”**

**— “I don't need any memory to know that I love that boy.”**

**— “I won’t leave until I talk to you, Marinette. Please!”**

**— “Please, take it. It’s for you.”**

**Also, for the memories of Oblivio in this chapter and in the next, big thanks to the Miraculous wiki (the** [ **Oblivio** ](https://miraculousladybug.fandom.com/wiki/Oblivio/Transcript) **script is at miraculousladybug dot fandom dot com /wiki/Oblivio/Transcript )**

**Last but not least, if you read this and you’re not part of our wonderful Discord server already, but you enjoy reading, writing and talking about Miraculous, please join our Discord server,** [ **Miraculous Fanworks** ](https://discord.gg/mlfanworks) **(for people on FFN, discord dot gg slash mlfanworks). See you there soon, and see you next week here with chapter 5!**


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